Cosmopolis - AARON THOMAS...Maria Cristina Venti Sede La rivista ha sede presso i Dipartimento di Fi...

CosmopolisRivista semestrale di cultura

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cosmopolis [03] interno.indd 1 20/06/2007 7.08.37

Cosmopolis. Rivista semestrale di cultura

Comitato di direzioneRoberto Gatti, Vincenzo Sorrentino (coordinatori), Brenda Biagiotti,Thomas Casadei, Dimitri D’Andrea, Antonio Pieretti, A�bertoA�berto Pirni,

Ambrogio Santambrogio, Tommaso Sediari,Mario Tosti, Car�o Vinti, Mauro Volpi

Comitato scientificoLuigi Alfieri, Danie�e Archibugi, Pietro Barcellona, Mauro Bonaiuti,

Massimo Borghesi, Marco Buzzoni, Rosanna Camerlingo, Ange�o CapecciAdriana Cavarero, Gug�ie�mo Chiodi, Luigi Cimmino, Va�ter Coralluzzo,

Gabrie��a Cotta, Franco Crespi, Amina Crisma, Gua�tiero De Santi,Manue� De Sica, Antonio De Simone Pina De Simone, A�essandro Ferrara,

Andrea Fioravanti, Sergio Givone, Donata Gottardi, Giovanni Grandi,Pier�uigi Grasselli, Domenico Jervolino, Maria Rosaria Marella,

Francesco Merloni, Franco Miano, Gaetano Mollo, Maurizio Oliviero,Cristina Papa, Benedetta Papasogli, Tamar Pitch, Giovanni Pizza, Stefano Ragni,

Massimo Rosati, Atti�a Tanzi, A�essandro Tinterri, Mario Torelli,Francesco Totaro, Marco Ventura, Carme�o Vigna, Francesco Viola,

Gianmaria Zamagni, Stefano Zamagni, Gianfrancesco Zanetti, Dani�o Zolo

Comitato di redazioneLuca Alici, Antonio Allegra, Barbara Bartocci, Marco Bastianelli,

Nico�etta Ghigi, Federica Grandis, Francesco Lemma, Massimi�iano Marianelli,Fabio�a Mastrini, Sara Mollicchi, Chiara Nucci, Romina Perni,

Maria Cristina Venti

SedeLa rivista ha sede presso i� Dipartimento di Fi�osofia, Linguistica e Letterature de��a

Faco�tà di Lettere e Fi�osofia de��’Università deg�i Studi di Perugia, via de��’Aqui�one 8, 06123 – Perugia.


CosmopolisRivista semestrale di cultura

1 | 2007


Cosmopolis. Rivista semestrale di cultura, n. 1, 2007. issn: 1828-6771

2007. Tutti g�i artico�i de��a rivista sono protetti da��a �icenza Creative Commons.Per informazioni su��a �icenza Creative Commons: www.creativecommons.org.Mor�acchi Editore, Piazza Mor�acchi 7/9 | Perugia.www.cosmopo�ison�ine.it | editore@mor�acchi�ibri.com | www.mor�acchi�ibri.comProgetto grafico de� vo�ume: Raffae�e MarcianoStampa: giugno 2007, Digita� Print – Service, Segrate.La rivista si avva�e de� contributo finanziario de��a Provincia di Perugia.

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Neg�i u�timi giorni di apri�e de� 1986 �e autorità sovietiche dispongono �’evacuazione di decine di mig�iaia di persone da��e zone �imitrofe a��’impianto di Tchernoby�. La fotografia in copertina, tratta da una pagina co��egata a� sito de� “Muséum d’histoire nature��e de �a Vi��e de Genève” (più preci-samente: http://images.google.it/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/mhng/image2/tcher-04. jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ville-ge.ch/musinfo/mhng/page1/tcher-ill.htm&h=2813&w=4724&sz=5595&hl=it&start=41&um=1&tbnid=eeFBgBMWU8B7tM:&tbnh=89&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3DTchernobyl%26start%3D36%26imgsz%3Dxxlarge%26ndsp%3D18%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dit%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:it:official%26sa%3DN), ne documentane documenta una fase. Probabi�mente di origine “governativa”, �’immagine è riportata (ad a�ta riso�uzione) con. Probabi�mente di origine “governativa”, �’immagine è riportata (ad a�ta riso�uzione) conProbabi�mente di origine “governativa”, �’immagine è riportata (ad a�ta riso�uzione) con didasca�ia ma senza �’indicazione de��’autore, né de��a data e de� �uogo precisi in cui è stata scattata. Ne��a pagina non vi sono riferimenti a� copyright e a��a proprietà inte��ettua�e de��’opera, né è stato possibi�e reperire a�tre informazioni su��’immagine.


Indice

Editoriale 9

In questo numero 15

quale sviluppo per il pianeta?

Pietro BarcellonaI� capita�ismo e �a pu�sione a��a crescita i��imitata 19

Vandana ShivaThe Privatisation of Life Forms: Can Seed Be Owned? 27

Jean-Jacques SalomonL’irresponsabi�ité socia�e des scientifiques 37

Bruno AmorosoG�oba�izzazione e povertà 53

Guido SamaraniL’attua�e dibattito su��o svi�uppo in Cina 63

Mauro BonaiutiObiettivo decrescita: tra utopia e rea�tà 73

Andrea BaranesI� ruo�o de��e istituzioni economiche internaziona�i e a�cune proposte di riforma 81

Luca Martinelli-Marco BersaniL’acqua: una merce o un diritto? 91

Roberto Vecchi-Martina ManciniNote da��a periferia: �e mi��e voci residua�i de��e favelas 101

Mehdi AminrazaviThe Intertwined Wor�d: the C�ash between Modernity and Tradition in the Iranian Context Interview by Elahe Zomorodi 111


Francesco GesualdiLa sfida de��a sobrietà ne��a società dei consumi 115

i dilemmi della ‘razza’: tra cittadinanza ed esclusione

Étienne BalibarLe retour de �a race: un “cosmopo�itisme inversé”? Entretien avec Thomas Casadei 125

Carole PatemanRace and Gender Interview by Aaron Thomas 143 Thomas CasadeiLe risorse de��a Critical Race Theory: �a sovversione de��a ‘razza’ 159

Patricia J. Williams‘Transcending’ Race. Obama and the American Di�emma 169

Riccardo Gori-MontanelliQuestioni razzia�i e università americane: �e vicende de��’affirmative action 175

Massimo GelardiDiscriminazione e color-blind society: �a disso�uzione de��a questione razzia�e neg�i USA 183

Ilaria Maria SalaPo�itiche razzia�i ne� continente asiatico 191

Eduardo R. Rabenhorst‘Razza’ e p�ura�ismo po�itico in Brasi�e 201

il riscaldamento globale: questioni etiche e politiche

Bruno CarliCambiamenti c�imatici: �a prudenza e �a preoccupazione scientifica 215

Dimitri D’AndreaAspetti mora�i, po�itici e cognitivi de� risca�damento g�oba�e 225


Dale JamiesonThe Mora� and Po�itica� Cha��enges of C�imate Change 235

Giampiero MaracchiCambiamenti g�oba�i e mode��o economico 245

Luigi PellizzoniI� cambiamento c�imatico come oggetto cu�tura�e: scienza, po�itica e incertezza 257

Sergio Filippo MagniResponsabi�ità e giustizia verso �e generazioni future 269

tra le righe

Roberto GattiQua�e re�igione per una sfera pubb�ica democratica? Note in margine a��’u�timo Habermas 279

Gli autori 291


Carole Pateman

Race and GenderInterview by Aaron Thomas

In 1997 Charles Mills published The Racia� Contract, a book that was directly inspired by your earlier work The Sexua� Contract.1 How did your collaboration with Mills come about?

We first met in 1999 when we were both on a pane� at the APSA conference and Char�es subsequent�y suggested that we might write a book together. Our books are now often taught a�ongside each other so, if for no other reason, it seemed �ike a good idea. I a�so remarked at the end of The Sexual Contract that I had exaggerated in ca��ing the sexua� contract ha�f the story of the origina� contract; the parties to the contract were white men. So a joint book provided me with a good opportunity to make a contribution to the racia� contract.

Is the book Contract and Domination co-authored or does it consist of indi-vidually composed essays that can be taken as discreet viewpoints on a variety of themes?

The book begins with a dia�ogue in which we discuss our differenc-es about contract theory. Char�es is much more favorab�y disposed to-wards it than I am. Because we differ, we have written the other chapters individua��y. We have each written about the “other” contract, on the intersection of the racia� and sexua� contracts, and have rep�ied to our respective critics. Writing the book in this way means that readers can then see for themse�ves exact�y how we differ and what imp�ications that difference has for our ana�yses.

1 C.W.C.W. Mills, The Racial Contract, Corne�� University Press, Ithaca 1997; C. Pateman, The Sexual Contract, Stanford University Press, Stanford 1988.


144 I dilemmi della ‘razza’: tra cittadinanza ed esclusione

In The Racia� Contract Mills quotes and distances himself from your assertion, made in The Sexua� Contract, that «Contract always generates political right in the form of relations of domination and subordination.»2 Rather, Mills suggests, «domination within contract theory is more contingent» and «contract theory can be put to positive use» once the biases informing it have been acknowledged. Al-though he does not develop such a line of critique, he points to Susan Moller Okin’s Justice, Gender and the Fami�y (1989) as one example of such a critical use of contract theory.3 In Contract and Domination, did you and Mills arrive at any consensus on this issue? Can you describe how the notion of contract is understood and employed in Contract and Domination?

Let me say first that in The Sexual Contract, in addition to the ear�y modern theories of an origina� contract, I was concerned with a specific, and rather pecu�iar, form of contract; name�y, contracts about property in the person. I focused particu�ar�y on the marriage contract and the emp�oyment contract. Property in the person is a po�itica� fiction, but a necessary fiction if institutions such as emp�oyment are to be presented as constituted by free re�ations. The contracts in which I was interested create re�ationships – and I showed how even vo�untary entry into a con-tract about property in the person creates a re�ationship of subordination, such as that between “worker” and “emp�oyer.” Thus my argument was that democratization requires that the fiction of property in the person be abandoned and that new forms of agreement rep�ace contract.

But apart from the prob�ems I discussed in my ana�ysis of contracts about property in the person, I have more genera� prob�ems with con-tract theory. This is connected to the different ways in which Char�es and I approach and use “contract.” My work has been in the tradition of the ear�y modern theorist of an origina� contract. That is, I have taken the origina� contract as a story about the creation of a new form of (mod-ern) society, the modern state (“civi� society” in the ear�y modern idiom), and its centra� power structures and institutions. My argument was that specifica��y modern forms of power and domination – what I ca��ed civi� subordination – were created in both the private and pub�ic spheres. The origina� contract “creates” both spheres; modern contractua� mar-riage is the centra� institution in the private sphere, and the institutions of emp�oyment (the “economy”) and citizenship are centra� in the pub�ic

2 C.C. Pateman, The Sexual Contract, p. 8.3 C.W.C.W. Mills, The Racial Contract, pp. 136-37, n. 9.


145Race and Gender

sphere. In my ear�ier book on po�itica� ob�igation I was concerned with the �atter, that is, the re�ationship between the citizen and the state. It is this dimension of the origina� contract – the socia� contract – that is usu-a��y assumed to be the who�e story, but in The Sexual Contract I focused on the second dimension, the sexua� contract. I now see the origina� contract as three-dimensiona�. The third dimension is the racia� contract that justifies the government of whites over nonwhites.

Theories of an origina� contract rest on the premise of individua� free-dom and equa�ity, and it fo��ows that, if freedom and equa�ity are to be maintained, a�� government must be based on agreement (consent, contract). So how are power hierarchies to be created in a new situation of juridica� equa�ity and freedom? The answer, I argued, is that they are constituted and reproduced through contract (about property in the per-son). Contract is the specifica��y modern vehic�e for creating and main-taining re�ationships of domination. So I ana�yzed both the c�assic texts to uncover the neg�ected story of the sexua� contract and examp�es of actua� contracts (marriage, emp�oyment, prostitution) that peop�e enter into every day.

One of my objections to contemporary contract theory is that the �egacy of subordination in theories of an origina� contract and the ro�e that contract about property in the person p�ays is neither know�edge nor confronted. It is not that the ear�ier theorists were “biased” but that the po�itica� order that they justified in their theories was structured by sexua� and racia� subordination. Most contemporary contract theorists mere�y nod towards their predecessors and take it for granted that the structura� features of the theory, and the actua� history of the conso�ida-tion of racia� and sexua� hierarchies, can be abstracted away so that a neutra� “contract” is �eft.

Now, Char�es is using contract theory in a very different manner than I am. Un�ike me, he be�ieves that contract theory can be used in a more radica� manner than is the case at present and turned to emancipatory ends. He works within – a significant�y modified – Raw�sian framework. Contemporary contract theorists, fo��owing Raw�s, are concerned with an idea� contract; that is, the princip�es which wou�d be agreed to be-hind the vei� by parties who are concerned to maintain their freedom and equa�ity. In contrast, both Char�es and I are, as he says, ana�yzing non-idea� contracts. We are interested in the rea� wor�d of domination and inequa�ity. Char�es is cha��enging contemporary contract theorists



on their own turf, whereas I am arguing that we wou�d be better advised to abandon contract theory. I admire the manner in which he has taken Raw�sian theory and, as you put it in your question, turned it to posi-tive ends. For examp�e, in our book he has a very good argument about reparations for African Americans.

However, ironica��y, contemporary contract theory is not about con-tract at a��, either hypothetica� or actua� – this is another prob�em that I have with it. Contemporary contract theory is about mora� reasoning and contract does no rea� work. As its practitioners wi�� admit, contract becomes mere�y a metaphor. A�� the arguments cou�d be made without it. Indeed, I think that Susan Okin’s book i��ustrates this. She cou�d have made her case without using Raw�sian theory. For Char�es, “contract” is �arge�y a way of high�ighting that socia� and po�itica� institutions are conventiona�, created by human beings. I agree that they are conven-tiona� but I do not think that the metaphor of contract is required to convey this. I prefer a more direct way of arguing about po�itica� prob-�ems – we are not behind the vei�, we are right here, we are who we are in the circumstances in which we find ourse�ves, so why not confront the prob�ems head-on rather than using the apparatus of an hypothetica� origina� position?

Of course, as Char�es argues, Raw�sian theory is extreme�y influentia�. I am g�ad that he is showing how a more progressive argument can be made within that framework. I hope that other contract theorists wi�� use his work but I am not a�together optimistic that it wi�� happen. After a��, too many po�itica� theorists sti�� ignore or pay on�y cursory attention to three decades of feminist scho�arship.

Reflecting on the difficulties of merely incorporating women within the conven-tional framework of liberal democratic theory, you contend in The Prob�em of Po�itica� Ob�igation that «the enormous task facing anyone who wishes to de-velop a genuinely democratic theory of political obligation is to formulate a uni-versal theory, including civil equality, that also embodies a social conception of individuality as feminine and masculine, that gives due weight to the unity and the differentiation of humankind.»4 In your essay Feminism and Democracy you write that «one of the most important consequences of the institutionaliza-

4 C.C. Pateman, The Problem of Political Obligation: A Critique of Liberal Theory, Stanford University Press, 19852, p. 193.


147Race and Gender

tion of liberal individualism and the establishment of universal suffrage has been to highlight the practical contradiction between the formal political equality of liberal democracy and the social subordination of women, including their subjec-tion as wives within the patriarchal structure of the institution of marriage.» Further, you argue that feminism provides democracy «with its most important challenge and most comprehensive critique» and, you conclude, «neither the equal opportunity of liberalism nor the active, participatory democratic citizenship of a�� the people can be achieved without radical changes in personal and domestic life.»5 In light of your recent work with Mills, did you find that a consideration of gender and race together raised challenges to political theory or practice that you had not anticipated in your earlier works?

I pub�ished The Problem of Political Obligation right at the beginning of my thinking about the imp�ications of feminism for po�itica� theory. In the “Afterword” to the second edition, from which you quote, I tried to say something about the prob�ems that are raised by considering women as we�� as men as citizens. I was writing the book in the 1970s – it was origina��y pub�ished in 1979 – the same year that I pub�ished, with Ter-esa Brennan, my first essay in feminist po�itica� theory. The �ate 1960s and 1970s were exciting times for academic po�itica� theory; feminist arguments opened up a who�e new way of �ooking at fami�iar questions, high�ighted many questions that had not been asked for a very �ong time in po�itica� theory and made it quite impossib�e to go on reading the c�assic texts in the way in which we had been taught.

But I think it is now often forgotten how much work had to be done to bring feminist perspectives into academic work. At the time, there were b�ack and Latina women who were asking questions about race but nonwhite women’s voices got even �ess of a hearing than white wom-en’s voices, and most white women did not �isten to them. And, more recent�y, critica� race theorists, starting from an ana�ogous position to feminist scho�ars in those ear�y days, have had to do a simi�ar amount of extreme�y hard work. And so it is not surprising that scho�arship on sexua� and racia� subordination has for the most part deve�oped a�ong para��e� tracks. To begin to gain some understanding of each of these incredib�y comp�ex questions is a very difficu�t task and to try and bring

5 C. Pateman, Feminism and Democracy in The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism and Political Theory, Stanford University Press, Stanford 1989, pp. 210, 214, 222.



them together within contract theory is even more difficu�t. We have on�y begun to scratch the surface in Contract and Domination.

It took me a �ong time to appreciate just how difficu�t it is to incor-porate women as free individua�s and fu�� citizens, in either theory or practice. Consider, for examp�e, these two prob�ems. First, as I stressed in my answer to your previous question, the prob�em is not just a mat-ter of outdated attitudes or unthinking prejudices and biases. Rather, it is a question of power structures that he�p constitute both our societies and our conceptions of ourse�ves. As Rousseau we�� understood we are a�ways faced with the difficu�ty of how we can bring about a change in structures when individua�s are as they are. For instance, the structure of emp�oyment is such that men monopo�ize the higher �eve�s of occupa-tions and the higher paying positions and success requires that emp�oy-ment must a�ways be put first. This structure makes it a rationa� choice for women to marry and to do most of the unpaid care work in the home (to do what “women” shou�d) – or, in the case of coup�es from higher status groups, to emp�oy other women, now drawn increasing�y from different ethnic or racia� groups, to do the care work so that wives too can pursue �ucrative paid emp�oyment. Thus both socia� structures and notions of mascu�inity and femininity continue to reinforce each other, and nonwhites do much of the care, service and dirty work. And this pattern continues despite universa� suffrage, anti-discrimination �aws, equa� pay �egis�ation and so on.

Second, there is the prob�em that I once �abe�ed “Wo��stonecraft’s di�emma,” because it is a prob�em that she grapp�es with in her po�itica� theory.6 On the one hand, women have demanded that the rights of citi-zenship shou�d be extended to them, and the notion of a “gender neu-tra�” citizenship is one conc�usion of this demand. The prob�em is that women are then inc�uded in a practice of citizenship constructed from men’s attributes, capacities and activities. Can women then appear as anything but �esser men? On the other hand, women have a�so insisted, often simu�taneous�y, that women have specific capacities, ta�ents, needs and concerns that shou�d be recognized as the attributes of citizens and that they perform distinctive tasks which count as the work of citizens. But then women are demanding that everything that has been exc�uded from concept of “citizen” must be va�ued and count in po�itica� �ife, a

6 SeeSee The Patriarchal Welfare State in The Disorder of Women, pp. 195-204.


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reassessment that is not possib�e given current conceptions of “citizen-ship.”

It was such di�emmas that prompted my comment that feminism posed the most important cha��enge to democracy (i.e., to democracy in the minima�ist sense in which it is most common�y current�y un-derstood). To find a reso�ution of the di�emma requires an a�ternative conception and practice of “democracy.” Of course, the prob�ems and di-�emmas become immense�y greater once that race is taken into account too. In The Sexual Contract I emphasized that men who were subordinate at work were masters at home: but the same can be said about white women. They may be subordinate to their husbands but they stand in a power re�ationship to nonwhite women. Even if equa� to their husbands, in a racia� order they enjoy the privi�eges of those with white skins and are superior to both non-white men and women.

Marriage occupied a centra� p�ace in The Sexual Contract, but in Con-tract and Domination I recognize that to consider the racia� as we�� as the sexua� contract requires a revision of my argument. I argued that the marriage contract provided for �egitimate, order�y access for each man to a woman of his own. But under the racia� contract men’s choice of a wife must be �imited if racia� “purity” and racia� power are to be maintained. I a�so stressed the connection between the marriage contract and the emp�oyment contract and how men’s status as husbands was �inked to their first-c�ass status as citizens. But this is true on�y for white men. For examp�e, in the United States after emancipation efforts were made to ensure that former s�aves regu�arized their unions and got married. Cov-erture was enforced – but this did not trans�ate into the rights of citizens for b�ack husbands. The civi� rights of b�ack men and women a�ike were severe�y �imited and, especia��y in the Southern States, their po�itica� rights denied. For most of the twentieth century, major socia� po�icies �arge�y exc�uded African-American men and women.

The picture thus becomes infinite�y more comp�icated once both con-tracts come into view. Progressive po�itica� movements were entang�ed in the racia� as we�� as the sexua� contract. In Contract and Domina-tion I provide some i��ustrations of this; for examp�e, women were very prominent in the movement against the s�ave trade in Britain (though discriminated against by ma�e campaigners), but they never regarded b�ack women, inc�uding b�ack women in Britain, as their equa�s; again, the suffrage movement in the United States was �arge�y segregated. The



�egacy of this history becomes very visib�e in the reviva� of the women’s movement from the �ate 1960s onward. Non-white women comp�ained from the outset that they and their interests were �arge�y ignored. The particu�ar�y difficu�t position of b�ack women was high�ighted in the 1990s when Anita Hi�� accused C�arence Thomas of sexua� harassment during the hearings for his nomination to the Supreme Court. Not on�y did the Senators apparent�y find it difficu�t to be�ieve that sexua� har-assment was an everyday part of the workp�ace, but much of the b�ack community was hosti�e to Hi�� for being part of what was perceived as a white feminist agenda that operated to the detriment of b�ack men, and for breaking the African-American code and criticizing a b�ack man in pub�ic.

Moreover, the who�e prob�em of the sexua� and racia� contracts has become even more comp�icated with the “war against terror.” The posi-tion and attire of women is again being used, as it was in the heyday of co�onia�ism, to i��ustrate the backwardness and a�ien character of non-white cu�tures and a�� the rhetoric about a c�ash of civi�izations per-forms a simi�ar function. It is a�so hard to be other than cynica� about a�� the ca��s for democracy – the Pa�estinians he�d an e�ection, judged free and fair by internationa� observers, but their e�ected government was prompt�y boycotted by the United States and the European Union and ministers and representatives have been kidnapped and detained by Isra-e�. And now, too, the sexua� and racia� contracts are part of g�oba�ization, a�though both contracts have been bound up with European expansion into other peop�e’s territories from the ear�y modern period, as I exp�ore in my contribution to the racia� contract in our book.

Can you say something more about that?

In my chapter “The Sett�er Contract” I examine European expansion into North America and Austra�ia and the use of the doctrine of terra nullius. The chapter is a companion piece to The Sexual Contract. I �ook at the arguments of Grotius and Locke, (the �atter more briefly since there is now new scho�arship on Locke and America) and I a�so consider the �eading �ega� cases in both the southern and the northern New Wor�ds. The chapter begins with the verdict of the High Court of Austra�ia in 1992 that the country was not terra nullius when the first sett�ers �and-


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ed in 1788. Po�itica� theorists today take the �egitimacy of the state for granted, but this was a prob�em at the heart of theories of an origina� contract and in the ear�y modern period there were questions about what justified Europeans crossing oceans and p�anting themse�ves in other peop�e’s �ands. The doctrine of terra nullius, the c�aim that a tract of �and is vacant, empty, uninhabited, uncu�tivated or a wi�derness, provided a justification for dispossession.

There is a sense in which the sett�ers can be seen as the figures in the state of nature in the c�assic texts come to �ife. They did not journey to the New Wor�ds in order to become part of the societies and nations that had existed in the �ands for so �ong. They went there to create new societies and po�itica� institutions, to create “civi� societies,” i.e., modern states. As Locke, for examp�e, makes c�ear, what the sett�ers found was an actua� state of nature. The �ands are portrayed as sti�� being in the first age of the wor�d, as �acking cu�tivation, (private) property, and as �acking proper government or sovereignty. Therefore, the sett�ers (can be said to) make an origina� contract. The contract takes the form of a racia� con-tract in which the sett�ers are the parties to the contract but the Native peop�es are henceforth governed by it. Their �ives, institutions and �ands are brought within the jurisdiction and the boundaries of new states.

In the chapter, I distinguish between the strict �ogic of the sett�er contract, which I argue is exemp�ified by Austra�ia where terra nullius, in the sense of uninhabited territory, became the �aw of the �and, and the tempered �ogic found in North America where the existence of Native nations was given some form of recognition. The re�evant jurisprudence dea�s with native tit�e; the question of sovereignty is carefu��y cordoned off from scrutiny. My conc�usion is that now that the doctrine of terra nullius has been repudiated, the prob�em of sovereignty cannot in the �ong run be avoided and a question mark hangs over �egitimacy.

In the 1990s some political theorists looked to the notion of “group rights” or to the defense of “group identities” in an effort to address patterns of oppression or domination not easily subsumed under the paradigm of distributive justice. But attempts to determine what constitutes a group worthy of specific rights did not yield any unproblematic criteria or definitions. Some critics charged, moreover, that the attempt to define groups risked saddling individuals with ascriptive identities they might not have freely chosen themselves. In your collaboration



with Mills, did you consider of such issues as individual or group rights, given the apparent fluidity of ethnic and racial identification and the overlapping nature of any given individual’s group involvements in the United States?

The debate about group rights in po�itica� theory in the 1990s was most�y conducted under the heading of “mu�ticu�tura�ism.” The argu-ment was whether two very different categories of peop�e, non-white immigrants into Europe and North America and the Native peop�es of North America and Austra�ia, shou�d have cu�tura� rights. The debate raised a variety of prob�ems about the character of groups and how the re�evant groups were constituted. But one of the striking things about this �iterature was that “race” was rare�y mentioned. The discussion, as the term “mu�ticu�tura�ism” imp�ies, was about cu�tura� groups and important po�itica� and historica� questions about co�onia�ism and race tended to drop by the wayside. And, unti� feminist scho�ars intervened, the prob-�em of the subordination of women, and more genera��y the question of individua� rights, within the groups received very �itt�e attention.

In Contract and Domination we do not direct�y address the prob�em of “groups” (as I’ve mentioned, Char�es presents an argument for repa-rations for African Americans). But, of course, the construction of the category of “race” is a�so the construction of groups – in this case “white,” “b�ack” or, more genera��y, “non-whites.” In my chapter on the inter-section of the racia� and sexua� contracts I discuss the construction of a modern understanding of “race.” Throughout human history various groups have seen “us” as being very different from “them.” But the now fami�iar idea of “race” and the construction of racia� hierarchies based on the co�or of skin, facia� features, type of hair and so on, and the c�aim that �ack of various capacities and attributes can be read off from such bodi�y characteristics, is a conception that deve�oped in the ear�y mod-ern period a�ong with theories of origina� contracts and ideas about the stages of human deve�opment. Kant, for instance, is important in the emergence of the idea of “race.”

Once the idea of race has come into the wor�d, socia� and po�itica� orders start being bui�t on that basis and peop�e start thinking of them-se�ves in terms of race. Then a�� the fami�iar prob�ems arise about how individua�s are to be categorized. The prob�em of who was “white” was of course the most crucia�, since that carried with it power and privi�ege. Everyone gets caught up in the new way of thinking and in racia� power


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structures, whether they want to upho�d the racia� order or dismant�e it. Both racia� and sexua� differences are popu�ar�y seen in terms of b�ood and nature, yet in both cases (except for the natura� fact that women not men have babies) the differences are po�itica� constructs that serve to designate women and non-whites as fit on�y for subordination not freedom. Like the idea of property in the person, race is a po�itica� fic-tion but an extraordinari�y powerfu� socia� and po�itica� force. Despite a�� the recent cha��enges to taken-for-granted conceptions of sexua� and racia� difference, they are very tenacious; power and privi�ege are hard to dis�odge.

In The Racia� Contract, Mills contends that «the economic dimension of the Racial Contract is the most salient,» insofar as the moral and legal dimensions set the stage for the broader project of financial exploitation.7 While this may be plausible when considering the history of colonialism, how well does it help to explain the contemporary stance of the West with regard to problems such as the outbreak of tribal and sexual violence in Africa over the last decade or so? Does the developed West’s reluctance to intervene in the genocide in Darfur, for exam-ple, suggest that there are no resources worthy of economic exploitation?

I agree with Char�es that economics is centra� to the racia� contract, but I disagree that it is the “most sa�ient” aspect. Sexua� power is a�so centra� to the racia� contract. Or, more accurate�y, the three dimensions of the origina� contract intersect and have reinforced each other. The state has uphe�d �aws and po�icies that have conso�idated structures of racia� and sexua� power, the sexua� contract has been refracted through race, the racia� contract has shaped sexua� re�ations, and both contracts have structured citizenship.

I have a�ready referred to the co�onia� project of creating new civi� so-cieties in a terra nullius but, of course, extraction of resources was another major driving force of co�onia�ism. We hear a �ot about post-co�onia�ism today but whi�e the occupation of Iraq and the new rush to exp�oit and appropriate the riches of Africa, by China as we�� as Western countries, is perhaps “post” in that some of the methods have changed, in other respects it �ooks sad�y fami�iar. And, in the �ast ana�ysis, the extraction is sti�� uphe�d by mi�itary might. The prosperity of the rich countries is un-

7 C.W. Mills, The Racial Contract, p. 32.



derwritten by the transfer of resources from the g�oba� South. The poor and destitute of the wor�d – more than two bi��ion peop�e �ive on �ess than two do��ars a day – are overwhe�ming�y nonwhite. To be sure, many are exp�oited and persecuted by their own governments, the members of which enjoy pa�atia� �iving and overseas bank accounts, but the economic po�icies and internationa� organizations backed by the governments of the rich countries have increased g�oba� inequa�ity. Nor is it on�y Euro-peans who see other peop�es as inferior or unfit to govern themse�ves. The g�oba� racia� contract is enmeshed in a series of �esser racia� contracts that serve to maintain transfer of resources.

A�though �itt�e has been done to stop the pi��age, rape and s�aughter in Darfur (and Sudan has oi�) the conflict and atrocities have received a fair amount of pub�icity. You mention intervention; but what kind of intervention might bring about the desired resu�ts is an extreme�y dif-ficu�t question. Mi�itary might can often defeat the predators but how is a peace worth the name to be bui�t? For one thing, armies, whether con-ventiona� or peacekeeping, have a very poor record in their dea�ings with gir�s and women. One might ask why Darfur is in the head�ines whereas other tragedies have been and remain virtua��y ignored. Consider, for examp�e, how �itt�e has been said about the four mi��ion peop�e who have died in the Congo over the past severa� years in the conflicts there, or that for a quarter of a century from 1975 there was si�ence about the Indonesian invasion of, and ki��ings and atrocities in, East Timor, or that at present two mi��ion Iraqi refugees are ignored by the occupying pow-ers, the United States and the United Kingdom.

I exp�ore aspects of some of these questions in my chapter “Race, Sex and Indifference.” In the fina� section of the chapter I discuss some eco-nomic issues and use “contract” in a much broader sense – as a metaphor – so that, fo��owing Char�es’ �ead with the g�oba� racia� contract, I can address what I ca�� the g�oba� sexua�-racia� contract. I a�so bring this con-tract together with Norman Geras’ contract of mutua� indifference. The contract of mutua� indifference, he argues, is visib�e in the rea�ities of our time; it reflects a wor�d in which, in genera�, peop�e remain unmoved by �arge-sca�e atrocities, mass deprivation and distress. Geras does not deny that there are peop�e and groups who are motivated by humanitarian-ism and make efforts, sometimes very heroic efforts, to assist others in torment or distress, but most peop�e, most of the time, do not do so. The contract reflects genera� not universa� re�ations of mutua� indifference


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and takes the form that I do not come to your aid in an emergency and I do not expect you to come to mine. Geras argues that we �ack a socia� mora�ity of mutua� aid and so are governed by mutua� indifference.

I do not attempt to discuss the reasons for governmenta� po�icies and inaction but it is c�ear that the prob�em of indifference is exacerbated by the wi��ingness of numerous governments around the wor�d to prop up corrupt, predatory and bruta� ru�ers and e�ites when it is perceived to suit their economic and strategic interests. The “war on terror” now gives a new fig �eaf to any government that is oppressing its own peop�e and the recent examp�e of the United States supporting the Ethiopian invasion of Soma�ia suggests that the “war on terror” might �ead to new proxy conflicts in Africa.

I raise the enormous and comp�ex question of why peop�e are so wi��-ing to turn a b�ind eye, do not to want to hear, or both know and do not know about atrocities, suffering and the torments that humans inflict upon each other. I do not pretend to have an answer to this question, but I make a suggestion. In The Racial Contract, Char�es argues that the suffering of whites counts for a great dea� more than that of nonwhites and there are certain�y p�enty of examp�es to support this. But my argu-ment is that the sexua� contract is just as important as the racia� contract in he�ping to account for indifference. Geras’ book is about extreme suf-fering and dire emergencies, but indifference is part of everyday �ife. In the home the �esson is �earned that gir�s and women are worth �ess than boys and men. No “war on terror” has ever been dec�ared about the myr-iad forms of vio�ence suffered by women. Yet vio�ence against women is endemic g�oba��y. No country provides adequate physica� security for women but we avert our eyes from what happens to “our” women and we do not want to know about what is done to “their” women.

Nor do a�� cases of suffering receive the same attention. The contract of mutua� indifference is refracted through the sexua� and racia� con-tracts. Consider, for instance, that on�y in the 1990s did vio�ations of women’s rights start to be seen as vio�ations of human rights or that rape in warfare has been acknow�edged as a crime and prosecuted on�y in the 21st century. The use of rape as a weapon of war and its use in what we now ca�� ethnic c�eansing to try to “di�ute” the b�ood�ine of the enemy began to receive attention on�y when it happened in Europe, in the Ba�-kans in the 1990s. Much �ess has been heard, for examp�e, about the tens



of thousands of gir�s and women raped during the genocide in Rwanda or during the conflicts in the Congo.

The most common objection to arguments for universa� mutua� aid is that our natura� inc�ination, and our first ob�igation, is to care for those c�osest to us. The most common response to this objection is that, even if this is the case, there is no reason why it shou�d prec�ude assistance to others abroad. What is usua��y over�ooked is that it is not true that a�� those c�osest to us receive assistance. There is an hierarchy of worth at home and abroad. The interre�ationship between the sexua� and ra-cia� contracts encourages turning a b�ind eye, corroding everyday �ife at home and fostering indifference to destitution and suffering abroad.

Your recent work has dealt with the question of basic income. Do you think that basic income represents a meaningful response to the problem of racial and gender discrimination?

The introduction of a basic income wou�d not be a so�ution but I think it wou�d be a step in the right direction. Or, at �east, it wou�d be if the income were set at an appropriate �eve�; that is, at a �eve� that provides a modest standard of �iving. The reason for supporting a basic income is a�so important. It is often seen as another form of poor re�ief and a be-�ow subsistence �eve� of income is advocated. Whi�e I support measures to provide for the poor, income at this �eve� has �itt�e potentia� for socia� change. I see basic income not as poor re�ief but as an important part of the process of democratization, the creation of a more democratic soci-ety and a more democratic form of citizenship. The other crucia� e�ement is that a basic income is paid unconditiona��y, with no emp�oyment tests, and so on.

If these two requirements were met, individua�s wou�d have a wide range of opportunities – providing that they were wi��ing to �ive on the income at a modest �eve� – which inc�udes the opportunity not to be emp�oyed. (Because the income is unconditiona� they cou�d take paid emp�oyment if they wished). This possibi�ity worries some supporters of a basic income who hedge it about with conditions and argue that the income shou�d be be�ow subsistence �eve� as an incentive to be in the paid �abor force. The institution of emp�oyment is both undemocratic and centra� to the creation and maintenance of the sexua� and racia� con-


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tracts. Nationa� and internationa� economic po�icies in recent years have supported the spread of emp�oyment across the wor�d. A basic income at �east offers the potentia� to start turning the tide and opening up discus-sion of ways of organizing production on a more democratic basis.

Universa� suffrage is now accepted in virtua��y every country as a basic right of citizens. What is not accepted – indeed, ru�ed out by structura� adjustment and privatization and the reduction of citizenship to another form of consumption – is that citizens have a right to subsistence, to a decent standard of �iving. My argument is that the �atter right is as fun-damenta� as the right of the suffrage; that is why I see a basic income as a democratic right. Like the suffrage, the materia� security provided by a basic income underpins the enjoyment of other rights.

Materia� security wou�d enab�e a�� individua�s to participate, to the �eve� that they wished, in socia� and po�itica� �ife, to be active citizens. A basic income wou�d he�p undermine the sexua� and racia� contracts. It wou�d provide the opportunity to �eave or refuse poor�y paid jobs with unsatisfactory and dangerous conditions, and to avoid or to �eave abusive re�ationships. For the first time in history, a�� women wou�d be economi-ca��y independent – as Mary Wo��stonecraft advocated in 1792 – and thus cou�d avoid subjection within marriage. If a basic income is seen as part of democratization then it wou�d be possib�e to open the question of the re�ationship between marriage, emp�oyment and citizenship, and between paid and unpaid work, and some of the props of the racia� and sexua� contracts cou�d be weakened.

There is a�so an important symbo�ic dimension to basic income. Both women and nonwhites are overrepresented in the ranks of the poor, and the condition of the poor often means the respect due to fe��ow citizens is withhe�d from them. If a�� citizens, as a right, were granted income to �ive in a modest and decent fashion the temptation to deny respect wou�d be removed. Acknow�edgement of a democratic right to a basic income wou�d be a major symbo�ic affirmation of fu�� membership of a�� individua�s as citizens. This wou�d he�p diminish the �esser citizenship that is part of the sexua� and racia� contracts.

Interest in a basic income has been growing recent�y and there is con-siderab�e grass roots support for it around the wor�d. Not surprising�y, since the po�icy runs counter to current neo-�ibera� economic dogmas, on�y one government, the Brazi�ian government, has enacted �egis�ation for a basic income; the A�aska Permanent Fund is another examp�e (not



at subsistence �eve�). The question whether universa� emp�oyment for a�� adu�ts is feasib�e today is se�dom asked, nor is the assumption that the institution of emp�oyment is a necessary part of democracy often cha��enged, even though nineteenth century productivist mode�s are no �onger eco�ogica��y sustainab�e.

(Interview given on May 30, 2007)


Cosmopolis - AARON THOMAS...Maria Cristina Venti Sede La rivista ha sede presso i Dipartimento di Fi...

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